IMPACT Knockouts champion Mickie James recently spoke with Denise Salcedo from Instinct Culture about a wide range of topics, including her decision to participate in this year’s WWE women’s Royal Rumble, and how she hopes WWE will continue to work with other companies now that the door has been slightly opened. Highlights from the interview are below.
Why she decided to wrestle in the Royal Rumble, explaining that she didn’t want the infamous trash bag incident to be her WWE legacy:
For me I felt that it was a very childish and egoic way to look at it, to go like ‘No I don’t want to do this because my feelings are hurt,’ I could have done that and that was an ego decision, I would have had to live with that decision. I would have had to take accountability for the fact that I just blew my chance to be the first person to do something in a very very long time and to open this gateway and all of these possibilities… This business is bigger than my ego, and my love for this business is bigger than my ego in the sense that this is groundbreaking for everyone to follow and I’ve always wanted to make a positive change in the business no matter what and this was an opportunity to do this and if nothing else, if this was my last thing on WWE television this would be the last thing they remembered not the latter. That was my reason and if people can’t understand that then we just don’t think alike and that’s okay. I prayed about having an opportunity to reclaim Mickie James and to put respect back on my name and here was an opportunity that was given to me on a silver platter. Why would I turn that down if it was something that I prayed for?’
Thinks WWE may consider working with more companies in the future:
I think yes. I don’t know that it will be immediately, I think this was an opportunity for WWE to test the water, to see if it was something, people talk and they say ‘this will be great and this will get a lot of ratings and this will be a big buzz’ but until it’s actually in front of them I think they can’t actually see it…. I feel that now that they see the potential and how much the fans responded to it, the idea of it happening with the men, or with the World Championships, or something like that, now, at least the idea of that possibility and that door is open.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)